Edward Rollins (Rollans) was born on March 16, 1836, in Charlottesville, Virginia. By the late antebellum era, he was living as a free man near Frankfort, Ohio, where he worked as a farmer. His first wife, Mary Stewart Rollins, died in 1857, possibly in Frankfort. Rollins enlisted in the Union army on August 15, 1864, in Delaware County, Ohio. He mustered in as a private in Company A in the 5th USCT Infantry Regiment on August 25 in Hillsboro. His enlistment records describe him as 5 feet, 5 inches tall, with black hair, black eyes, and a dark complexion. He spent most of the next year in Virginia. He was wounded in action, probably in an attack on Fort Gilmer on September 29, 1864. Although testimonies of his injury differ, he was most likely hit by a piece of artillery shell in his left knee. He received treatment either in a field hospital or on a US hospital boat at Fortress Monroe. He eventually recovered enough to rejoin his regiment, and he mustered out on August 29, 1865, in New Bern, North Carolina.

After the war, Rollins returned to Ohio and worked as a barber and a janitor. He married his second wife, Martha C. Gray, a year or two after leaving the army. Their only child, Nellie Rollins, was born on August 27, 1871. Martha died on July 7, 1877. Rollins then married Anna Davis, and their son Clifford Rollins was born on October 7, 1883. The couple divorced in the mid 1880s, and she died in 1887. Rollins suffered from rheumatism, piles, chronic diarrhea, deafness, heart disease, and a variety of other ailments. He began receiving a $6 monthly pension in 1894, and by 1911, the government had increased the amount to $20. By early 1912, he was living with his daughter in Bloomingburg. He died of old age and senile debility in Bloomingburg on January 26, 1912.